


The Heart is a Strange Pretender

by Maggie McCain (laurakaye)



Series: For Emily, Wherever I May Find Her [2]
Category: The Pretender
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-18
Updated: 2010-01-18
Packaged: 2017-10-06 10:39:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/52737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laurakaye/pseuds/Maggie%20McCain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I will find you someday, Emily. I promise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Heart is a Strange Pretender

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Carolyn for great beta services.

Most people would say it’s impossible to love someone you’ve never met. I don’t agree. I am the living refutation of that claim. In spite of everything, all the years of emptiness when I didn’t know of your existence, then those of aching loss when I knew and couldn’t find you, I never knew anything about you-- except for the most important things of all.

You are my little sister. Your name is Emily. And I love you.

Until my encounter with Carolyn and Maggie, the love I had for My Sister was an idealized conception, born of a lifetime of bizarre isolation coupled with an all-too-brief stint of relative normalcy. But after seeing your namesake, after hearing Carolyn speak of you as a loved friend, I feel that I finally have a chance-- even if it is a little one-- to love, not the idea of having a sister, but the sister I actually have. Carolyn gave me a precious gift, a little Essence of Emily. Don’t get me wrong, the things I learned about Mom were wonderful additions to my miser’s store of memories. But, Emily, I had no memories of you… and now I have. Not memories of us together, but the next best thing: memories from someone who loves you too, telling me that, even as I blindly love My Sister, Mom has taught you to think of us with love. The missing men in your life-- Dad, who you barely remember, and Kyle and me, whom you never knew-- are given life and love and a part in our lost family through Mom’s stories and the pictures she hoards in the locked box under her bed.

The heart is a strange pretender. It can take little more than a hope and a whisper of memory and build a love strong enough to motivate a lifelong search. Now that I have some concrete facts to go on, I am more determined than ever to find you.

I will find you someday, Emily. I promise. Somehow we will escape from the constant need to look over our shoulders for sweeper teams. We will be together in life as in our dreams; wearied by the journey but strengthened by each other. Until then, please know that we are longing for you. Dad misses the little angel who brightened his dark life; I miss the bratty kid I never got a chance to tease; our new brother misses being spoiled, being the baby, being made to play tea party with a ragtag bunch of dolls and teddy bears. We all want to know the tenderhearted woman who befriended Carolyn Williams, the brilliant mind that faked mediocrity for 12 years, The radiant beauty that could be my memories of Mom, with a little of me, she said, around the eyes. We will never stop looking. I will never end my search.

I promise.


End file.
